Necessary flaws?
I could think of at least 3 different effective ways to get the focus on quality content within the Steem eco-system, but there will never be consensus about that, because such routes are usually not attractive for whales.
It's the whales that determine what's trending (simply from calculating the total SP that is backing upvotes, whether the whales delegate or not, it's still their SP and therefore their choice and their responsibility).
I would argue that the accounts powering the bots (delegating their SP) are the true bot owners. Just like berniesanders' accounts power randowhale.
That's part of what I meant... But you made a good point:
Can you tell me about them briefly? or give me a link to them if there was any?
Because I have ideas too, myself but rather than focusing on good content, they would just make the bad content easier to ignore.
My favourite solution is to upgrade the reputation system and limit maximum rewards based on reputation. Reputation should be determined like we determine our witness votes (https://steemit.com/~witnesses), so instead of reputation gained by massive (bought) upvotes on a post, it's something that can be given and taken-away depending on your actions. When voting for someone as "Good Content Creator" you are vouching for someone. It should also come with a negative option "Bad Actor", which would instantly destroy spammers, scammers and the likes.
https://steemit.com/utopian-io/@fitzgibbon/proposal-maximum-rewards-based-on-reputation
This could be good idea actually, I like the reputation system of steamtrades. But the rep in there is basing on only one thing it won't fit with steemit system.
Your idea of voting like a witness is better, I think it can be easily abused (make +1000 accounts and make them +rep people you like and -rep people you don't like.) But it's still a good proposal.
Witness votes are stake-weighted, and 'Good Quality Content Creator' would also be stake weighted.
Create 1000 accounts and you have gained no extra reputation.
Did you check how witness votes work in Steem right now?
No I didn't ... I thought everyone had the same input. Maybe I should research it sometime.
Well, I'm here to tell you, I never had enough SP to upvote myself to 70 and my few experiments with vote buying (very recently and very small) were not helpful in that regard either. I earned every single point in the open market.
Well then Mark, you seem to be the exception. Maybe I was generalizing, so good point!
Oh and well done by the way!
The only reason there can never be true consensus on steemit, is the weighted vote prevents it.
Well what would you consider to be true consensus? 1 vote 1 count (the democratic way) isn't going to work either under the current circumstances, since some people have multiple accounts.
And the whole DPOS idea is, that if you have more to lose, you will usually be inclined to opt for the things that positively impact the community more than the ones that are not so much "vested".
While rep is gamable, delivered just like financial rewards and can be bought, it is far less fungible, as it isn't tranferrable as is Steem or SBD. That means hordes of bots won't have the rep to Sybil attack the witnesses with if witness votes are based on rep-weighted votes--unlike the current system which requires only money to control the platform.
While the DPOS idea is sound as far as you take it in the above comment, clearly ROI based on circlejerks, delegation, and bots severely compromises it's ability to influence whales to act so as to benefit the platform as a whole.
The trending page is a view into how DPOS is encouraging good content. A better view is to examine how Steem is increasingly concentrated in accounts that have more of it.
DPOS is the best way to encourage profiteering, not content creation.
Too bad I can't resteem a comment.
I'm not even looking for consensus on post votes, but there should be a better way for us to weigh in on the platform and how it's run.